by Vivian Lux
In twelve years in the business, I'd never once had writer's block. I didn't even understand it when others complained about it. To me, you sat down with your guitar and you powered through the ideas, one after another until you found something that worked. And it always worked.
Until now.
I set it back down again and stared at the wall, almost awed by how blank my mind was. Not a single idea bubbled to the surface of my brain. No melodies, no phrases that could be captured and fitted into a song.
There was nothing there. I stared at the wall as if it had answers, but the only thing that came to me was Ruby.
Kissing her wasn't something I'd planned. I had no grand scheme to seduce her by going to her knitting club.
But there had been something there. I'd felt it. She felt it. I could tell by the way she blushed when she made that accidental innuendo. And that feeling of wonder I kept having when I was with her, that rush of excitement over something brand new, made me lean in and see just what that something could be.
That something was electric. I'd kissed her softly, sweetly, but the way she yielded, parting her lips for me and letting me take control had my dick hard in an instant. She was perfect and I had no idea how I hadn't realized that until then.
I couldn't get that kiss out of my head. I couldn't get that girl out of my head.
And I couldn't get the words she'd shouted at me as she threw down her money and stomped out of the cafe out of my head either
You make decisions that affect other people's lives that aren't yours to make.
No wondered I had no ideas. That phrase had been running through my brain like a steamroller, squashing out any other thoughts.
Was it true? It didn't feel true. But then I had to remember that it was my idea to audition for the talent show way back when in the first place. My brothers had been content to get comic book money from our local appearances, but I'd always wanted something more. I'd more or less dragged my siblings to the mall that day.
And that decision had definitely affected their lives. Everything had changed, because of me. I'd always thought I'd done them a favor, that they'd owed me for it, but now?
Now I wasn't so sure.
Suddenly there was a bang that made my heart skip a beat. I leaped off my bed when it was followed by a sickening thud.
And then a series of eloquent-yet-filthy curse words that only Gabriel King was capable of stringing together.
I looked away from the wall. Duke looked up too. "You think he's okay?" I asked my dog.
Duke huffed and laid back down again, but I could feel his judgement all the same. "I'm sure he's not dead or something," I told him. "He wouldn't be cussing like that if he was."
I heard stomping and then another loud bang, then the sound of the tap running. Duke raised his head again and this time he looked at me.
"Fine," I told him. "You're basically deaf anyway, so you won't have to hear the yelling." I took a deep breath before calling down the stairs, "You okay down there?"
"Fuck off!" came the reply.
"Charming," I called back. "Just tell me you're not bleeding out on the carpet. Mom would kill me."
"I'm fine," Gabe grunted, then cursed again.
I thundered down the stairs and through the kitchen to find him in the downstairs bathroom. Blood streamed from a cut on his forehead.
"Jesus, you look like something out of a horror movie."
He ignored me and hissed, trying to fit a butterfly bandage over the wound, but the blood made it too slippery.
"Here, asshole. Let me do it, you're fucking it up," I said.
"I've got it."
"You clearly don't."
"Shit!" he snarled as the adhesive folded on itself.
"Will you let me?" I demanded. "Turn this way."
Gabe glared at me for a moment, but then blood dripped right down into his eye. Blinking furiously, he shoved the packet of bandages at me. "Hurry up," he growled. "Before I get blood on the towel and mom has a coronary."
I took the package, silently reveling in the first joke he'd made with me in nearly two years. "Okay hold still, I'm gonna pinch it shut."
He lunged away. "Are your hands clean?"
"No, they've been up in cowshit all day, you know me. What the hell happened to you anyway?"
He hissed as I gingerly closed the gash with my fingers. "I needed one of Dad's wrenches."
I instantly understood. "And he keeps them up so high."
"Fucking pegboard," Gabe sighed as I pulled the adhesive strip tight. "Why can't he have all his tools chucked in a disorganized toolbox like normal people?"
"So it fell on you? What, you didn't grab the ladder?"
"I didn't want to get out a fucking stepladder for just one wrench." He glanced at me as I wiped the blood away from the bandage with a wet cloth. "So I jumped."
I snorted. "Course you did."
"Course I did," he agreed.
I looked at him. He looked at me. This was the longest we'd spoken to each other in nearly two years. "How's that?" I asked, my voice oddly thick.
Gabe looked in the mirror and shrugged. "I suppose it'll do."
"You look like you got in a bar brawl," I told him.
He looked at me. "You don't look so great either," he observed, pushing past me out to the kitchen.
A smart remark leapt to my throat but Ruby's words clanged in my head and I held my tongue. "I don't feel awesome, if that's what you're trying to say," I said instead.
He opened the fridge and searched for a moment before pulling out an apple. "Well that sucks for you then," he said, polishing it on his shirt before taking a bite.
He was trying to shut me down, but I wasn't having it. "Where are you going?"
He lifted his chin towards the farthest shed.
"Dirt bike?" I asked him, incredulous. "Really? You still going to the track down by the creek?"
"Right," he scoffed, tossing his apple core into the trash. "Me and all the twelve year olds. No, asshole, the quarry."
The quarry was up the creek a ways. They'd taken out a bunch of rock along time ago, leaving a canyon where no canyon had business being. I hadn't seen it in years.
He had a pretty nasty cut on his eye that I had just cleaned up for him. There was no way he should be putting on a helmet and racing over uneven terrain and I had half a mind to tell him exactly that. Until I remembered it wasn't my decision. "I'll come," I told him.
Gabe regarded me. I couldn't read anything in his gaze other than detached interest, but I supposed that was better than open contempt. "You want to ride dirt bikes with me?" he asked.
I crossed my arms over my chest. "If you'll remember, they were Christmas gifts for all of us."
Gabe laughed. "I'm not still riding the ones we got as teenagers, idiot. I've got my own machine. Dad let's me store it here."
I found myself grabbing my leather jacket and following him out into the frozen yard. He strode without looking back at me, but I would tell by the set of his shoulders that he felt me there behind him.
It wasn't often that I was following him. The last time had been when I was chasing him the night he caught his ex-girlfriend cheating with our manager.
I wondered if he was remembering that too.
The small shed was unlocked. Gabe stalked inside and pulled a tarp off some kind of slick, high powered machine. I walked over, whistling. "That's your dirt bike? It looked like a rocket."
"Rides like one too," he said, boasting.
"You do this often?"
"What, ride? Yeah. Every damn day."
I glanced at my brother. Sometimes Gabe went all blurry on me, like he was vibrating with his need to go out and chase that next high. I wondered how much of it was Gabe's nature and how much was the remnants of his broken heart. Two years and as far as I knew, he hadn't dated anyone.
"So how has it been?" I asked. "Being home?"
He shrugged. "Fine. Boring."
"And your show?" Gab
e had a reality show on the ESPN satellite channel where he did extreme sports and wild, stupid stunts. It was called, appropriately, 'King of Pain.'
He looked proud. "They're talking about a second season."
"You want to do it?"
A little ghost of a smile. "It's fun."
I shook my head. "You're a madman."
Gabe grinned. The first real, genuine smile in years, and I clenched my fists to keep from pointing that out. I felt like I was walking a tightrope. One small slip-up and it would be all over. "I don't tell mom what we do," he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes. "She already agreed never to watch it."
A slight fizzle of connection burned between us as I said, "Smart move." We were two brothers hiding a secret to spare their mother heartache. It felt....
Normal.
"So you're all set then," I said, "But who knows what kind of shape my old bike is in?"
"Dad wouldn't let it fall apart. You know that."
"True." I followed him over to another shed - honestly they seemed to pop up like mushrooms overnight - and saw that he was right. Underneath its tarp, my electric blue dirt bike looked smaller than I remembered but otherwise in perfect repair. "Got any gas?" I asked Gabe.
"Up on the shelf."
I unscrewed the cap, trying to remember the last time I had done something like this. Something that could potentially get my hands dirty.
It had been a while.
I sort of missed it.
I grabbed my old helmet off the neatly organized pegboard and strapped it on. "Ready?" I asked Gabe.
"These aren't street legal."
"Had that ever stopped you?"
"No," he said immediately. "But I thought it might stop you."
I grinned. "What's the point of being a King Brother if we can't get away with murder?"
"Oh it's murder now? Who are we killing?" he chuckled, strapping on his helmet and wincing as it settled over his cut.
I took a chance. "How about Bennett?"
Gabe went stiff and still. The silence stretched out seemingly forever and I was ready to open my mouth and tell him. Tell him he was wrong, that I knew why he was angry but he'd made a mistake, ask if we could start over again, when Gabe let out a sound that could have been an exhale but just as likely could have been a laugh. I shut my mouth on the words before they could tumble out of me and fuck everything up.
"Let's ride," was all he said. But it felt like something had loosened between us.
Chapter Fifteen
Jonah
Gabe moved like the bike was an extension of himself, going way too fast. I hung back a little, letting him pull ahead.
He needed to go fast. I needed to know I was doing everything right. That was why we'd done so well as the King Brothers, him pushing us forward, me tying up the loose ends.
Fuck me, I missed it.
Maybe that's why my music wasn't coming? I gripped the handlebars a little tighter, wondering what he'd say if I asked him to help me write. Would he be a dick about it? He'd been a dick about everything else.
We reached the quarry and Gabe spun around, sending up a shower of pebbles. A few riders were already zipping around and sputtered over to size us up, two teenagers by the looks of them.
"What up, G?" they said to my brother, giving him the kind of worshipful glance I was used to seeing in twelve year old girls. "You gonna do some tricks?"
My brother shook his head. "I'm just here to ride."
They looked disappointed, then looked over at me. "That you, Finn?" the one in the orange helmet asked, excited again.
Gabe chuckled. "Nah man. That's Jonah."
The two of them cackled in a way I definitely didn't like. "Jonah?" Orange helmet wheezed. "No way! I thought you said he'd never risk get his pretty face messed up."
Gabe looked at me, instantly wary. Our relationship was a tight knot of hurt and righteous anger, but in the past hour we'd both made the first passes at starting to untangle it. He didn't want to fuck this up.
Neither did I. "Oooh," I sing-songed. "That's a nice burn."
He grinned and another loop of the knot uncoiled, loosening. "Well it's true," he said. "I definitely never thought you'd risk your face. Although I don't think I'd ever called it pretty."
I shoved him with my shoulder. "Are we going to ride or are you going to keep talking?"
"What, you don't want me taking your job?" he shot right back.
I swallowed. What Ruby said was still softly echoing in my head. It was time to sort this out, once and for all. "Gabe, you know I fired Bennett right away, right?"
The teenagers, sensing impending drama, sped away as fast as they could.
Gabe stiffened, but said nothing.. Which I supposed was progress. I took another deep breath. "You all split," I explained. "I was the only one that wanted to keep working. So he caught me up in breach of contract and that's why he was still hanging around." I looked at my brother. "He was just collecting a paycheck off my dime, but I never let him touch a single thing that had to do with my career. And as soon as I could, I paid out the nose to get out of it that contract. Hired these fancy lawyers and everything."
Gabe turned and looked at me. I could see the surprise all over his face and let out a rueful chuckle. "Yeah, you had no idea, did you?"
He licked his lips. "You never told us."
"You wouldn't return my calls," I reminded him.
"He didn't come after me."
"Well he fucking well knew better than that, didn't he?"
I could see the muscle jumping on Gabe's temple. "Stop grinding your teeth," I said automatically.
"Who did you hire then?" he asked.
I sighed. "Leon Jensen."
"Who just let you go."
"Yeah."
Gabe fell silent. The sun was out now, warm enough to melt the dusting of snow that had fallen last night. All around us was the steady drip-drip of melting, with the sun shining through the bare, glistening branches, making every twig a prism. It was pretty, but a weird kind of subtle pretty, one you only noticed if you're watching close enough to deserve it.
It made me think of Ruby.
Then then quiet was shattered by the buzzing whine of Gabe's motor as he kicked it to life. I looked at him as he pulled his helmet back down over his face. "Follow me," he shouted over the noise of his motor. "And stay in my line."
I felt the corner of my mouth twitch and had to catch the smile before he saw me grinning like an idiot. Because he didn't say the words out loud. And he probably never would. But I knew Gabe well enough to understand that this was his stab at an apology. At forgiveness. A slow, dripping melt. Like the trees.
Chapter Sixteen
Jonah
I hurtled after my brother, heart lodged in my throat. I'd forgotten this sensation, how fast everything moves. Driving a car, you're removed from your surroundings, divorced from the speed. It's almost like you're sitting in your living room. But on a bike, you're right out in the open with the noise of the wind in your ears and the slap of pebbles and rocks against your leg.
Gabe was leading us up a path that kept climbing. I'd never been up here. Usually riders stayed down the the bowl of the man-made canyon, racing as fast as they could through the open terrain. But up here the trees were closing in thickly along the side of the single-track. The overhanging branches were making me nervous as hell, but Gabe was only leading us further into the woods.
"Where the fuck are we going?" I shouted over the whine of our bikes.
"There's a jump!" Gabe called back, darting a look over his shoulder. The trees were whizzing by in an impossibly fast blur.
Sick panic built in my throat, but I couldn't tell Gabe that. He'd never listened to my warnings. Not about his ex, Noelle. Not about breaking up the band. Not about anything.
I kicked the throttle faster, trying to catch up with him. If I couldn't stop him, at least I could keep an eye on him.
My bike seemed to have a mind of its own. I wa
s barely controlling it, my tires only making infrequent contact with the dirt as we leaped over boulders and tree roots. "Gabe!" I called after a bad landing sent me spinning out. Some instinct I didn't know I still had kicked in, and I leaned into the skid, whipping around in a tight spiral before I righted myself. Shooting out like a stone from a slingshot, I hurtled to my brother who seemed to be slowing down. Was he realizing how idiotic this was?
No. When the trees cleared, I immediately saw what he wanted to do. "No," I said, as loud as I could.
Gabe only grinned. "No one's asking you to do it."
I glanced back out over the jump, heart thudding in my throat. "No way, that's fucking impossible, dude."
"For you maybe. I did it the other day."
I leaned out and looked again. The jump was over a carved out hollow, looking like a bite had been taken out of the earth. We were at the edge of a sharply cut ravine filled with scrubby brush and the carcass of an old refrigerator. "It's at least five stories down," I said.
"Yeah and the jump is eighty feet with a short ramp," Gabe said, readjusting his helmet. "I've done this a billion times."
"So why do you need to do it again?" I asked sharply.
"To watch your face," he said, kicking his bike into gear and lifted a gloved middle finger.
"You asshole!" I shouted over the whine of his bike as he circled back through the trees. I thought about pulling into his path, forcing him to crash into me rather than do this.
But it wasn't my fucking decision now was it? I'd tried to stop him from making mistakes so many times and all it had got me was his scorn. He always saw me as standing in the way of his good time.
I moved the bike back. Making sure I was out of his way for sure this time.
The whine of the bike grew higher-pitched as he kicked up the speed. I clenched my handlebars, white knuckled. I was feeling something very close to terror when I saw Gabe come shooting through the trees, a streak of white lighting, and then he was airborne.
His form was perfect. His aim was true. He landed on the far side of the ravine with whoop of triumph and spun around to raise his fist to me, shouting something I couldn't hear.
